Almost a year ago we received an invitation for the wedding of Glenn & Gina. They both live in New York and that is also the location for the wedding. This made us decide to visit New York City in 2012.

In december we started booking our flights and we ended up booking with Lufthansa. We leave from Nürnberg Airport and fly to Dusseldorf for a direct flight to Newark. On the way back at home 9 days later we depart from John F. Kennedy Airport and fly to Munich. In Munich we fly back to Nuremberg.

The first half of our trip we wanted to stay as close to Time Square is possible. And due to the prices of the rooms we decided to go for a Priceline hotel. After 3 bids we ended with booking the Crown Plaza Time Square hotel for only 150$ a night.

Since we are also invited for the rehearsal dinner which takes place at Staten Island we decided to book 1 hotel night there. We selected the Indigo and got a nice rate from 89$ a night.

And for the last 3 nights of our trip we stay in the Holiday Inn Hasbrouck Heights which is also near the party location from the wedding.

These last days we will also have a rental car to visit some places in New Jersey. Danielle wants to visit the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. This is a huge outlet center with 220 stores.

All the others we’d like to visit are not yet planned. We will figure out what to plan the upcoming weeks or see what we’d like to do when we are in the big apple!

Every once in a while I feel like doing something in the kitchen. And no it’s not regular cooking I like to bake things. Remember the Appleballs back in 2009? If not here is the link: Apfelbollen... This time I went for an Dutch Apple Pie:

Can’t wait till later tonight since it needs to cool down for an hour!

I’m a lucky guy. I already got the first present of 2012 from Danielle (thank you, ). An Apple Magic Trackpad. It’s something I always wanted to have but never decided to buy it although it’s not that expensive. Since thursday I’m using it and it’s a great add-on to the keyboard and the Magic Mouse.

The Magic Trackpad is the touch part of the MacBook computers. On the MacBook it’s great to work with and I never feel the need for a mouse there. On the iMac I’m used to work with the mouse but missed some of the gestures possible with the trackpad like zooming with one hand, getting to the desktop and switching to the Launchpad (direct access to your apps).

I’ve already figured that for some applications it is better to use the mouse and for other ones it’s easier to use the trackpad. Especially when browsing the web with Safari the Multi-Touch gestures are a great. When I finally have memorized all the gestures I could imagine that I’m not using the mouse anymore.

This year we have decorated our house in November. We’ve decorated it outside with LED’s as usual and off course our Christmas Tree with 1.000 lights is there as well. After more then 2 years we’ve build up our Christmas Village again. Okay I’ve to be honest only a part of it.

The christmas days we always plan a little bit up front. This year the Christmas Eve was spend at Sander’s sisters place where their parents joined us for the christmas ‘breakfast’ and unwrapping the presents. It was nice to be with all 6 family members together since Sander’s dad is staying in the hospital at this time and it was not sure or he would get the allowance to join us at home. We both got a lot of nice gifts and we had a very great evening. At the end of the unwrapping we were finally allowed to play with our gifts and Sander could wait setting up his new iPad 2. And then he also got the biography of Steve Jobs in English! Too bad he can’t too both at the same time!

The day after Sander went to pick up his grandma to visit his parents house so we could celebrate the 1st Day of christmas together. His dad also came home for a couple hours. His mother and Danielle prepared the brunch which consisted out some cold dishes with food and bread. It was delicious. After bringing his grandma back home, Sander went to the hospital to enjoy dinner with his dad. Danielle stayed with her mother in law for dinner.

The 2nd day of Christmas we had a very busy day. The first thing was picking up Danielle her sister and boyfriend to visit their Grandparents. It’s always nice to see your grandparents during Christmas time and it’s even more special when you live a little bit further away like we do. Afterwards we went to Danielle her parents and there we started with the christmas gifts. Danielle was very delighted with the gift she got since she already knew what she would buy from it. Her Dad got a very special gift, a Glennfiddich 15 Years Distillery Edition Wishky! Sander got also a nice book, the Biography of Steve Jobs in Dutch.

After the gifts it was time for dinner. The dinner was delicious with as highlight the home-made chocolate mouse with whipped cream! Since it was still early we decided to play a board game. The choice was ‘Mens, erger je niet’ because that wouldn’t take so much time! The game took over 3 hours! We won’t tell you who won but Danielle’s father came in last!

This year we enjoyed christmas very much! Now we are getting prepared for New Years Eve.

After ordering our new passport and I.D. we received them by mail on Saturday the 17th of December. The most sup rising thing was that we didn’t need to sign for receiving the documents. But everything was fine and we can now leave Germany legally again.

Next weekend we will ‘use’ our I.D.s for the first time since we will celebrate christmas in the Netherlands this year.